


with everything i am

by genesis_frog



Category: Sleepy Bois Inc, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (that should be a tag ao3), Angst, Dave | Technoblade and Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, Family Dynamics, Filicide, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, References to Depression, and also tubbo, this is the Sad Philza Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genesis_frog/pseuds/genesis_frog
Summary: Philza is nineteen when he finds a piglin child in need and the course of his life is irrevocably changed.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, phil watson & original characters
Comments: 22
Kudos: 356





	with everything i am

**Author's Note:**

> title from o sleeper by the oh hellos. it felt appropriate considering this is about sleepy bois LMAO
> 
> this basically started with "what if phil were young when he first started collecting children because otherwise hed be way older than he is irl" and it somehow spiraled into Phil Is Sad. special thank you to my friends with whom i have long conversations about minecraft youtube headcanons with, because a lot of the early bits of this fic were directly inspired by those conversations

It happened when Philza was a young man, younger than one would expect. He hadn’t yet been alive two decades. His bones were long but his flesh was thin, his hair a raggedy in-between, the hairs that grew on his chin thin and fine. Acne still dotted his face, as much as he willed it away at night and tried to keep clean. His sleeves and pants were always just a little too short for his limbs.

Despite this youth, Phil was independent and ambitious. He lived alone in his own world, and had big plans to one day create massive structures… he just wasn’t quite ready yet. So far he’d built himself a cabin and gotten to work establishing some small crop farms and collecting gear, nothing too unusual. His most recent addition was a Nether portal nearby, and this is the most critical detail.

It happened like this:

Philza left his house, sword at his hip and dented armor on cock-eyed, ready to journey into the Nether, and he turned to his portal and saw on the ground a tiny figure, laying still. Some part of him screamed out that something was _wrong,_ and he crouched down to get a better look, and he saw a piglin child, suffering, sick?, zombifying.

Until this point, Phil hadn’t considered himself much of a caretaker. He was a teenage boy, after all, and had never had to care for another living thing before. He didn’t think he had the instinct. And yet, all thoughts of his Nether trip left his head and all that was left was the burning desire to _help_. Phil scooped up the child and hurried right back inside.

Phil used a foot to open his door, as both arms were full, and he burst his way into his cabin. It was a mess as usual - boxes and chests strewn about, armor discarded on the floor, weapons on the table and decapitated mob’s heads on the walls. He delicately stepped his way to his bed, and once he made it there, lay the child down and tucked in the red blanket around his chin.

With the child inside, Phil could see what was wrong. His hide was dull and pale, his face sweaty, and just underneath the child’s skin Phil could see spiderwebbing veins of rot, pulsing like they wanted to spread further but still and stuck. Flakes of decay were starting here and there on the child’s body - he was stuck, partially zombified. Phil had seen piglins before, had seen zombified piglins, even, but he’d never seen one stuck in this in-between; similarly, he’d helped to cure villagers of undead afflictions, but had never seen one partially undead in this manner. Phil had, quite frankly, no idea what to do.

A sweat broke out on his forehead, and a frantic energy caused his hands to tremble. Phil found himself rooted to the spot where he stood looking down at the piglin child for just a moment, until he was suddenly, frantically, searching around his messy room for something that could help. He found himself eventually looking through his valuables box - could gold help? - no, golden apples - _golden apples_. Phil scooped one up, and after a moment of consideration, used his sword to slice it into approximately child-sized bites. He gathered up all the pieces and scrambled over to the child, who was only half awake, his eyes glassy as he looked at Phil. Phil sat on the edge of the bed and looked into the child’s eyes.

“Hey, little buddy,” he whispered. “You hungry?”

The piglin only looked at him, breathing heavy. Phil felt sweat drip down his forehead.

“That’s alright,” Phil said softly. “I need you to eat this for me, anyway. Can you do that?”

The piglin child let out the smallest whine, and Phil’s chest ached.

“Okay, okay, I can help,” Phil shushed him. “I’ll just open your mouth.”

Let it never be said that Philza instinctively knew how to properly care for the sick, because he found it most effective in that moment to manually open the child’s mouth and feed him one apple bite at a time, carefully avoiding his still-small tusks, and encourage chewing (also manually) even when the child did not seem to want to eat. Eventually, after a herculean effort on both parts, every bit of the apple was consumed.

The child did look a little better; some color had returned to his cheeks, and the rot in his veins seemed to be more tame than before. Phil found himself sighing in relief and stroking the child’s sweaty forehead.

“Get some rest,” he said. “You deserve it. You can eat another one when you wake up.”

With a sigh, the child’s eyes slipped shut, and he slept.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: he is nineteen years old, and stumbles upon a sickly piglin child. He uses his nonexistent medical knowledge and feeds the child golden apples until he’s healthy and running around the house, and Phil finds he cannot bring himself to make the child leave. His name is Technoblade, and Phil can’t exactly define the kinship he feels with him, but he does know he would do anything to continue to see him smile.)

* * *

  
  


Life with Techno was quiet, but good.

Techno takes a while to learn how to speak Phil’s language, his mouth not used to the way Phil shapes words. Phil learns how Techno works: his affinity for gold, his boundless energy, his curiosity and desire to get into trouble. Phil shows Techno how to farm, and he gravitates especially toward the potatoes, snorting in delight every time he tugs up a potato plant and finds one fully grown in its roots.

Phil brings their crops into a nearby village for trade, and that’s where he meets Her. He’s never been so knocked off balance - she’s beautiful, and she’s funny, and she makes him want to come back every day just to speak to her again. So he does - he returns after two days, with a smaller crop than usual, just because he wants to see her again.

Soon enough, they’ve started a courting, of sorts. They flirt, spend time together, it feels like a whirlwind - only for the moments he manages to steal away to spend time with her, because at home, he has Techno to think of.

The first time she meets Technoblade, she reacts with surprise, caught off guard. Phil had neglected to mention that he was a guardian for a child, much less a piglin child. Nevertheless, Phil finds his mouth moving before his mind, explaining that Techno is his son, and when his mind catches up he finds it agrees. _Techno is his son_. She’s understanding, accepting; Phil looks to Techno and sees him looking up at his father with stars in his eyes. Phil smiles so hard he hurts.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: he is 21 years old, and his son Technoblade is approximately at the stage of development of a very quiet four year old human. The love of Philza’s life gives birth to their child, a boy they name Wilbur. Techno is at first scared of Wilbur’s screaming, but is so endlessly fascinated by his round red cheeks and tiny, strong hands. Phil is young, but he feels like a _father_.)

* * *

Tragedy strikes. She dies, leaving behind a second son - only a newborn - and a broken heart, in Phil. He’s become a widower at the age of twenty-five.

He listens to his youngest - Thomas, Tommy - scream, and Phil finds himself crying too, crushed under the enormity of the void in his chest. He stares blankly at the wall, lost, until Wilbur tugs on his sleeve and asks, ever so politely, “Dad please get Tommy to shut the hell up”. Phil barks out a laugh, tells Wilbur not to say that, and remembers to rock Tommy to sleep.

When the baby is finally resting, Phil puts Tommy down, and gets Wilbur back to bed, and makes sure Techno is tucked in. He sings Wilbur a lullaby upon request, a silly song about salmon that Phil had made up one day and Wilbur had become very attached to, which has slowly begun to flesh out into a ballad with multiple verses.

When he’s sure all three are asleep, he sits out on his porch with a bottle and stares out into the darkness and drinks until he can’t think straight anymore and he doesn’t get a minute of sleep.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: he is 25 years old, and she is dead, and Phil is a widower. His sons are eight and four and only a few months old, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to do this. _He doesn’t know how he’s going to do this._ And he’s falling apart at the seams, and his guts are falling out on the floor, and his hair is full of split ends. There’s dirt under his fingernails and behind his ears, even though he reminds Wilbur and Techno to make sure they clean those spots, even though he bathes Tommy there. Phil feels like he’s drowning.)

* * *

Years go by and wounds heal, but leave scars.

Techno takes an interest in learning how to fight, and Phil obliges. He’s good at it, too - though he’s just training with a wooden sword, he’s already able to kill spiders that wander too close to their home. He’s twelve and finding himself with a desire to explore the world around him, and Phil lets him, because there isn’t really a way to stop Technoblade when he’s set his mind to something. Some days, Techno comes home with pockets full of gold, and he talks about the things he’s found, the ruined and broken portals scattered around the world. Other days, he’s quiet, and contemplative, and doesn’t speak except to say that he’s okay. Phil could never be more proud of him.

Wilbur loves to tell stories. He plays with dolls and figures, making them move in elaborate tales of war and drama and excitement. Some days when Phil has nothing he has to attend to, he sits and watches Wilbur weave his tales, and he watches as his son becomes a god to his toys. Wilbur, at some point, begins taking over the role of bedtime storyteller - often just recounting the events of the day, but in only the way an eight year old could, full of imagination and wit and a special spark that Phil finds utterly charming.

Tommy, who never knew his mother, doesn’t see the gap in their home. He doesn’t see the ways that the mothers of Wilbur’s characters often die, or that Techno has days where he cannot bear to be at home and he just wanders from sunup to sundown. Tommy was too young to watch Phil fall apart, and thank gods for that, because Phil would never have wanted him to see that. Instead, Tommy grows into a happy child, full of energy and enthusiasm, if a bit clingy. (As a baby, he would cry any time Phil left his sight; Phil took to strapping Tommy to his chest and going out to work in the fields, or collect firewood. As Tommy got older, he started following along, and doing his best to help, the way Techno and Wilbur did when they were his age.)

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: he is twenty-nine and sober, and has been for several years. Technoblade is twelve and flexing his independence and coping with grief. Wilbur is eight and coping with a grief he doesn’t know the shape of. Tommy is four and unknowingly anchoring his family together. The emptiness in Phil’s heart doesn’t go away, and he doesn’t think it ever will, but the spaces surrounding it grow, and he throws everything he has into loving his sons - because if he doesn’t have that, then he thinks he’d be a broken man.)

* * *

As his sons spread their wings, their family grows.

No, Phil does not remarry. He still cannot find himself forgetting about her, but he’s come to terms with the fact that she is gone.

Instead, he’s managed to find himself a fourth son.

On their way back from an excursion into town, they stumbled upon a box (a coffin) on the side of the road. They approached it timidly, and while Phil was hesitant, Tommy professed his desire to see it opened. Phil eventually agreed, just to check and see what was inside, on the condition that his sons turn and look away. (Techno refused, but Phil decided to let it go - Techno was old enough to make those kinds of decisions for himself, now.)

Phil opened the box and was not surprised to find a boy inside; however, he was surprised to discover that said boy was alive and breathing, and just appeared to be asleep. Phil woke him up and asked if he was okay, and as the sleeping boy blinked awake blearily and slowly shook his head _no_ , Phil had a sinking feeling that he would have to take this one home, too.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: he is 37, and his oldest son is 20 years old, and his youngest is 12, and Tommy has just adopted Tubbo out of a coffin on the side of a road. Tubbo doesn’t say where he came from, or how he came to be asleep in a coffin, but Wilbur insists he doesn’t need to, and Phil won’t push, Phil never pushes. What once was hard is now easy; when for so long being a father felt like water filling his lungs, adopting a fourth son now comes as natural as breathing air. And finally, Philza breathes.)

* * *

Techno leaves to go to Hypixel’s world, to compete against people as ferocious in battle as him. His skill in combat, which he’d started developing at a young age, is unmatched; monsters fear him and instinctually give him berth when he walks through the forest, a gravity around each step like a thunderclap. Sparring with his brothers doesn’t satiate the thirst anymore, and Techno departs for glory with a genuine _thank you_ to his father. Phil’s parting gift is a crown, forged out of the gold Techno collected as a boy and inlaid with crystals of stained glass, selected by Wilbur out of Tommy’s findings. Technoblade wears it proudly as he conquers, conquers, conquers.

Wilbur leaves a year after, with dreams of a big world - one that tells a story, he explains, excitedly. He wants to be the god and the toy, he wants to see empires rise and fall, see wars waged and mountains climbed and an epic history unfold before his very eyes. Phil cannot find it in himself to accept Wilbur’s invitation, but he sends him off with a blessing. Phil’s parting gift is a musical instrument, handcrafted by Phil out of wood from the forest their home was built in, strings made from fine pulls of iron dug from the earth beneath their feet. Tubbo decorates its body with intricate designs and patterns, carved gently into the wood. Wilbur takes it proudly and he sings story after story after story.

Tommy and Tubbo leave the year after Wilbur. They’ve been invited, Tommy explains, to a quiet world, without many people. “And we want to wreak havoc,” Tubbo elaborates, with a grin. They’ve grown into quite the pair of troublemakers, Tommy with his bombastic front and Tubbo’s…. Tubbo-ness. The two of them have practically learned to read each other’s minds, and have figured out how to scam the townspeople for everything they own before anyone catches on to what’s happening. No, Phil isn’t worried at all about them, even if they’re younger than their brothers were when they left home. He trusts them to be able to handle themselves, but he insists they send letters when they can, and he reminds them to call on him or Wilbur or Techno if they’re ever in danger. They shrug him off, embarrassed and blushing, chastising him for the indignity of ruffling their hair and giving them a hug.

Phil’s parting gifts for them are a pair of music discs, labeled _CAT_ and _MELLOHI_. When Cat plays in a jukebox, one can hear the ambient sounds of their home (book pages turning, the scrabble of pencil on paper notating music, food being cooked and water boiling, the scrape of a whetstone on a sword), with a gentle tune playing over it, picked out on a guitar beneath a soft hummed melody; when Mellohi plays in a jukebox, one can hear Phil himself, singing a lullaby that Tommy remembers from when he was little, something long and convoluted and having to do with a salmon. Tommy and Tubbo take the discs gratefully, and defend them valiantly.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: Technoblade leaves home when he is 22. Wilbur leaves home when he is 19. Tommy and Tubbo leave home when they are 16. Philza is 41 and truly alone for the first time since he was a teenager.)

* * *

Phil finds a newfound freedom without a family around. He takes on all of the large ideas he could never make, builds cities out of nothing, raises islands from the earth, weaves magic with his fingertips. He flies, stretching the wings he’s kept folded away for so long. He cuts his hair, he washes behind his ears. He finally takes the time to mend all his clothing properly, because now he has nothing _but_ time.

He looks forward to the letters he receives from his sons. Tommy’s are brief and leave out key details, Tubbo’s are nothing but details without context, and as such both are hard to follow (but he thinks they’re doing alright, it sounds like they’re having fun). Wilbur’s letters are practically novels, and Phil has to set aside time before bed to read them (and reread them, because Wilbur’s writing style is particularly dense, and Phil needs to take time to really dissect everything). Techno’s letters are the sparsest, but when he writes, Phil can practically hear Techno’s voice in his head, dictating every word on the page aloud. Techno’s letters make Phil feel the loneliest.

The letters come fewer and further apart. Wilbur’s novels grow shorter, Tommy and Tubbo’s bizarre notes even harder to understand. Techno stops writing altogether.

Phil stops caring about a lot of things. He goes to the End and builds an ocean in the void, because he can, and because he can hardly bear to be at home. As soon as he feels finished with it, he returns to his house - empty, dust gathering on every surface in sight - and curls up in bed and stays there for a long time.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: it doesn’t. And that’s the scary part.)

* * *

A bird taps on his window.

Phil stirs, awoken from a deep slumber, like a bear from hibernation. He goes to the window and finds a letter clutched in its claws. Numb, he takes it, opens the envelope, but his hands don’t feel like his own.

He looks at the words. It’s a letter from Tommy.

He’s scared.

Tommy’s explaining what’s happening.

Something turns on in Phil, some instinct that first filled him when he first laid eyes on a piglin boy when he was nineteen years old. Some desire to save his children flows out of his heart like fire, burns behind his eyes like stars, fills his fingertips with static and void.

Phil reaches through reality and pulls himself through creation one-handed and screaming and finds himself in a tiny stone room, the words of a song scrawled on the walls, and standing behind his second oldest son.

(This is how Philza’s life changes forever: he kills Wilbur. He killed Wilbur. He killed Wilbur. _He killed Wilbur._ His hands will never be clean of this blood.

Phil has failed.)

**Author's Note:**

> (i felt weird abt including irl mumza in this fic especially just to have her die so i kept phil's spouse vague. im sorry mumza i love you no hard feelings <3)
> 
> if you liked this come visit me on tumblr (aroaceacacia.tumblr.com) or twitter (@genesisfr0g) i talk about mcyt in those places and sometimes i make banger posts


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